Toppings (Optional)

Instructions

Slice the ginger and onions and roughly smash the garlic

Cut the pork belly into 2cm x 3cm chunks. (Don’t cut them up too thin else they will melt away into nothing!)

In a skillet or heavy bottomed pot, set the heat to medium and add in the pork belly to start browning it. (Be careful at this point. Pork belly splatters a lot! Use a lid as a shield to deflect some of that hot oil away from you :))

When you have browned the pork belly halfway through, add in the onions, garlic and ginger to brown them as well.

Once all the pork belly has been browned, add in the five spice, beer, rice vinegar, broth, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, shaoxing cooking wine, sugar.

Set the stove to high and bring everything to a vigorous boil and boil it for 15 minutes

Once everything has boiled for 15 minutes, set the stove to medium low to low heat. You want the braising liquid to be doing a low rolling boil. Braise 1 hour and 20 minutes.

You’ll know it’s ready when the sauce is syrupy looking and the liquid should have reduced by almost half the amount you started with. If it hasn’t reached that syrupy consistency, continue to cook it for another 5-10 minutes.

Notes

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Update 08/29/18: A few people have made this with dark beers (stouts and porters) and found it incredibly bitter. Since beers have different IBU (International Bitterness Scale), I recommend using a beer that you enjoy drinking or a light or medium beer – unless you enjoy the bitterness of dark beers.

During the simmering process a lot of the fat will render out of the pork belly. Skim off the fat so there isn’t a layer of grease before serving.

Pork belly splatters a lot during the browning process! Use a lid as a shield to deflect some of that hot oil away from you

An alternative to pork belly that this also works with is pork ribs or pork hocks! 🙂 Cut up the pork ribs into individual ribs and use the same directions.